The Liveblog of Time: The Great Hunt

The Liveblog of Time: The Great Hunt

Chapter 27: A Shadow in the Night

Rand’s just decided to leave the city and look for Ingtar somewhere else, when he and Loial are attacked by Trollocs. He tries to use the Power, but it comes with a rather disturbing description of feeling oily all over, so they just run for it after a bit. And then Selene shows up, so I’m thinking she set this up to make him use the Power, which she’s had some kind of effect on. They’re all forced into a separate community of Illuminators, people who make fireworks…and kill anyone who tries to sneak in. Well, that’s certainly a different kind of secret society than I’ve ever seen before.

They get through without being spotted, though Loial does set off one firework for a cheap comic relief scene, but then more Trollocs arrive, and Rand has a Crowning Moment of Awesome by apparently vaporizing them with a big firework, and still getting everyone away safely. Selene disappears, and leaves a note at the inn telling Rand to think about becoming a hero himself with the Horn. How does he not see it?

This one comes as quite a surprise, having such an action heavy chapter in the middle of the city of plots and schemes (which are the same thing). The secretive, murderous firework makers are a pretty oddball idea even coming after the likes of the Green Man, but they’ll probably have a bigger role to play later on so I’ll just wait to see if that comes to anything to justify it.

5th May 2012 04:30:03 PM flag for mods

Comments

The oily sensation isn't something Selene is doing: It's just the Dark One's taint on the male half of the One Power.

Arilou
5th May 12

Unlike the grolm I don't think this conveniently happened because of Selene. More likely she showed up to protect Rand if he couldn't get out on his own.

One of the named Illuminators meets up briefly with Mat in the next book, and again several installments down the road.

TV Tropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy